75-year-old Chevy returns to long-ago owner

Lonnie and Pam Laster hold a black and white photograph of the couple in front of the 1938 Chevrolet when Lonnie owned the car in 1960. KEVIN LARA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A '38 Chevy belonging to Lonnie Laster sits in the driveway of his Capistrano Beach home. KEVIN LARA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Lonnie Laster, who owned the 1938 Chevrolet during high school, recognized his car in a junkyard when he looked inside and saw the "tuck 'n roll" interior and the registration of the car. KEVIN LARA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Pam Laster, left, and her husband Lonnie sit in the 1938 Chevrolet that belonged to Lonnie when the two began dating in the 1960's. KEVIN LARA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Lonnie Laster puts the registration of his 1938 Chevrolet in an album that documents the rediscovery of his car. KEVIN LARA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The old Chevy was ready for the junk-yard by the time Lonnie Laster got it in 1959.

A hand-me-down from his grandparents, Laster's older brother didn't want the 1938 coupe – it was too much work. So he gave it to his 14-year-old brother to spruce up for when he got his driver's license.

In that car, the teenager took his future wife, Pam Pebley, on dates to Anaheim High School football games and to parties. They drove the car as newlyweds and held onto it for years. In the mid-1970s, after three children, the couple sold the car. Not enough room.

For decades, Laster didn't think much about the old car – until he saw something out of the corner of his eye at an auto shop.

The Chevy.

EARLY YEARS

In February 1942, Laster's grandparents, Roy and Helen Sharp, bought the black coupe from a Japanese family forced to relocate to a World War II internment camp.

Dorathy Sharp Laster, now 88, remembers going with her father to buy the car for around $300 when she was a senior at Anaheim High. As part of the deal, the Sharps took a dog, too, a mutt named Margie.

Roy Sharp used the car to go from his Anaheim home to his job at Hunt's food plant in Fullerton. His wife never drove. Their daughter sometimes drove her father to work and then took her mom on errands or into Los Angeles.

"That's the only car they had, so that's the way we worked it," recalled Dorathy Laster, Lonnie's mom.

Lonnie Laster's first Chevy memory is riding on the seat between his grandparents to see the Rose Parade in Pasadena.

In 1959, after Roy Sharp got a Dodge as a retirement present, the car was passed down to a grandson.

TEENAGE BOYS

Lonnie Laster spent two years rebuilding the hand-me-down with their father's help. The Chevy got bright red paint, some chrome work and, in Tijuana, a red-and-white tuck 'n' roll – fancy upholstery.

"I was a car guy," Laster said. "It was my own car. I was just really proud."

Around that time, Laster caught the eye of Pam Peb-ley, a classmate and neighbor.

"He was a studly athlete, and I knew he was real smart," she said.

Their first date: an Anaheim High football game in the little red coupe.

CAR MEMORIES

The high school sweethearts would take the car to parties. On the way home, the fuse for the lights often would go out and the couple would have to pull over so Laster could change it.

"She bought the story every time," Laster said, as an aside, cupping his mouth to pretend that his now-wife couldn't hear.

Even when the lights worked, they were so dim that Laster would have to open the window so he could see the line on the road.

On Valentine's Day, he picked up Pebley in the car and gave her a pearl ring that she wore for 35 years.

Once, Laster lent the car to his brother Eddie for a day trip to Newport Beach. Eddie met Jan – his wife of 47 years.

Laster's younger brother used the car while Laster was away at college.

Lonnie and Pam got the car back as newlyweds after graduating from college and moving back to Anaheim.

By the early 1970s, the Chevy went into storage, and in the mid-1970s, it was sold.

"It was time for it to go at that point," Laster said.

COLLECTING CARS

Last year, Laster was getting repairs on a motor for his 1940 Ford truck, which would be his last car. He quickly changed his mind while at a La Crescenta parts shop.

He noticed a rundown, faded-pink Chevy in the yard overgrown by grass. Thinking about his old Chevy coupe, Laster strolled over to take a look.

The license-plate number looked familiar. So did the red-and-white upholstery.

"'That's it!'" Laster said aloud. "That's my car!"

The car had been sitting there for 25 years.

The owner was reluctant to sell it, but Laster kept showing old pictures and telling stories over the course of two weeks. Laster figured out how much the car was worth. The owner wanted three times that – $13,000.

"We can't do it,'" Laster told the owner.

He left.

An hour later, he agreed to buy it.

The Lasters, who now live in Capistrano Beach, got the car on their 46th wedding anniversary, as it turned out, and named it Margie, after the dog that was inherited with the car so many years before.

Much of the car is the way Laster had left it: He even found his father's original registration cards.

Laster, now 68 and a retired engineer and real estate investor, has spent $500 to get the car running, taking it to an Anaheim High car show and elsewhere. He said the couple, which owns several other spiffed-up jalopies, isn't going to give the coupe a new shine or anything like that.

"It just brings back all the memories and everything with the family and all those early days."

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